


Nightmares

by Rangergirl3



Series: Whumptober 2019 [19]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:22:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22094797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rangergirl3/pseuds/Rangergirl3
Summary: Pidge avoids sleep for a reason. So does Keith.
Relationships: Keith & Pidge | Katie Holt
Series: Whumptober 2019 [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1506101
Comments: 19
Kudos: 156





	Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate prompt to the original one for Day 19.

Lance poked his head into the lounge. 

"You _really_ should get some sleep."

Pidge made a non-committal sort of grunt from behind her laptop screen. 

Lance sighed, giving it up as a lost cause, and shook his head as he turned to leave. A thought struck him, and he almost turned back, but settled for calling out over his shoulder.

"You too, Mullet!"

A moment after the Blue Paladin had headed down the hallway, Keith blinked and looked up from the book he was reading, confusion written on his face.

"Did - Lance just say something to me?"

A smirk curled at the corner of Pidge's mouth. Her fingers never stopped typing away.

"He said you should get some sleep."

She looked up just in time to see Keith roll his eyes before returning to his book.

The companionable silence continued for about another hour before Pidge yawned. 

Keith glanced up from his book.

"Tired?"

She wrinkled her nose at him and stretched, still yawning. 

"Nooo," she managed. 

He raised an eyebrow in a disbelieving fashion.

"Somehow, I don't believe you."

He was half-smiling as he spoke. It was one of those smaller, half-smirks he sometimes got when making a wry observation on something.

Pidge glowered back at him, but her glower was not at full capacity. 

"I am _not_ tired," She insisted. "Or at least - "

She growled and resumed typing.

"-at least not enough to try sleeping yet, okay?"

Keith tilted his head inquiringly. 

"You - oh. Is it - like, nightmares?"

She hunched her shoulders.

" _Yep._ " she said, shortly.

When he didn't ask any more questions, she frowned over at him, but it didn't look like he was going to press her for more details. 

He did look down at his book, then back at her before answering.

"Sorry," he said. "That sucks."

Pidge rubbed her bleary eyes. "Yeah, it does."

Then she blinked, looking back at him.

"You too, huh?"

He shrugged, but he was looking down at the floor when he answered her question.

"Yeah."

She tapped her fingers against the keyboard in a restless fashion.

"...so..." she said. "Um. Want to watch a movie, or something?"

He looked back up at her, and she was glad to see that he seemed as ready as her to change the topic of conversation.

"Yeah. Sure."

* * *

Part-way through the movie, Pidge looked across the room and saw that Keith was half-asleep. She yawned a final time and pulled a blanket over him, and then another one over herself. 

The movie could play itself to the end. 

_She needed to...get some...rest..._

* * *

Some unknown time later, Pidge was roused from sleep by the sound of someone whimpering.

At first, she thought it was the movie. 

It wasn't.

* * *

* * *

The dream was always the same.

_He was alone._

_No one would look for him._

_He was alone._

_The monsters always found him when he was alone._

* * *

* * *

Still in a fog of sleepiness, Pidge army-crawled clumsily but cautiously towards her friend, who still hadn't woken up.

"...eith?"

He didn't move. He just stayed right where he was, shivering as if the blanket draped over his shoulders were made of ice. At some point in the last few hours, he'd turned so that his back was towards her, but she could still hear the tiny, desperate cries of fear that escaped his clenched teeth.

"Hey. Are yo-?"

Then she saw how tightly he'd curled into himself, as if he were afraid of everything and everyone around him. Every now and then, his head would shake from side to side, as if he was hearing something that he desperately wanted to block out.

"Oh...Keith..."

Her friend didn't seem to hear her. 

* * *

* * *

It was always like this.

_He was alone._

_He didn't want to be alone._

_But no one was coming for him._

* * *

* * *

Hesitantly, Pidge reached out a hand and touched the back of Keith's shoulder with her fingertips. She wasn't sure what to expect, but she couldn't just sit by and watch him struggle against a nightmare without doing _something_ to help.

The last thing she wanted to do was scare him.

* * *

* * *

_Someone touched his shoulder, said his name._

_It cut through the fog of sleep, but it could not dispel the fear._

_Nothing could._

He didn't want to cry, but when it hurt like this, he couldn't remain completely quiet, no matter how much he tried.

_His head hurt, his eyes, his bones. It hurt, so much, and it would never stop._

* * *

* * *

Under her fingertips, Pidge felt Keith's heart start beating more rapidly, heard the half-swallowed sobs that went on, saw the way he buried his face deeper into the pillow to silence them.

She swallowed back a few tears of her own. She _hated_ seeing someone she cared for this afraid, and worse, so...ashamed of showing even a moment of weakness.

_Should she go get Shiro?_

_No. No, not yet._

_Maybe she could still help._

"Hey..." she said. "It's okay. Just a bad dream, yeah? It's okay."

She readjusted her position slightly, sitting up and placing the palm of her hand on his back, and rubbed the space between his shoulder blades in the smallest, gentlest, most reassuring circle she could manage.

* * *

* * *

In the first haze of wakefulness, Keith didn't dare look back up at Pidge, not after having woken her up.

_She'll be mad, she'll be mad, she'll be -_

But instead, the touch wasn't - wasn't angry, or annoyed, or anything he had expected.

* * *

* * *

A few moments later, once Pidge felt that Keith had grown more calm, she leaned over and kissed the top of Keith's head before retreating a little bit, to give him his space while still being close enough to reach out and hold her hand if he wanted to.

It was a friendly gesture, one that let him know she wasn't going anywhere unless he let her know that was what he wanted.

She readjusted her position once again, so that this time, her back was up against Keith's back, and after a few quick adjustments to her pillow, settled down again to sleep.

"It's okay," she said again. "I'll be right here."

* * *

* * *

That night, Keith slept better than he had for...longer than he could remember.

It was really nice, having someone nearby after waking up from a bad nightmare.

It was _really_ nice.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the long absence - life got crazy, stress levels spiked, my PTSD got crazy(er). I'm on just now getting back to writing for fun - oh how I have missed it!! <3 <3 <3
> 
> I often read over the comments you leave on my fics - and I love them!!! <3 love your exclamation marks, your reactions, and especially the general high-pitched squeals of delight/keysmashing in all caps. :-) <3 <3 <3
> 
> Also, I am now reading Terry Pratchett's 'Discworld' novels, and I LOVE THEM. Absolutely fantastic stuff. I hereby declare my personality to be a mix of Samuel Vines, the Bursar, and 'Death'. :D Absolutely wonderful books. Go read 'em. They are lots and lots of fun. :-) Very, very, very very good.


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